The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.
— Leo Tolstoy-
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- An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming, 3rd ed
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- Notes towards a set-objective language.
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Author Archives: Jacques Chester
The Mystery Continues
I am now fast approaching the one year anniversary of the last time I performed a clean & jerk. For someone who describes himself as an amateur weightlifter, this is an unhappy state of affairs. The first half of the … Continue reading
Posted in Weightlifting
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On Selling To Consumers
The software industry is a funny thing. For all of our heroic examples (Gates, Jobs, Page, Zuckerberg etc), it is difficult to tell whether we worship them because they are software-y types like us or whether we only do so … Continue reading
Books I Read on Holidays
My busted shoulder did me a single favour over the Christmas-New Years period. It excused me from being useful at my sister’s new home, where she and my brother-in-law are frantically working to fix the place up before moving in. … Continue reading
Posted in Books
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Fancying, part 2.
For a long time I’ve linked from my book reviews to Amazon, giving both affiliate and direct links. I’m still doing it, but now I’m adding nice little visual callouts. To the right you can see an example. The concept … Continue reading
Posted in Site News, Technical Notes
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Fancying up the place
Book reviews have steadily crowded out other posts on my blog. So I’ve fiddled with my theme to make them both visually distinct and, at the same time, stink the place up a bit less. It took more fiddling than … Continue reading
Posted in Site News, Technical Notes
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Picturing the Uncertain World
Part of my current development project is conveying to people that estimates are uncertain. Every estimate comes with unforeseeable risks (and many foreseeable ones that nobody takes the time to foresee). But how best to represent this graphically? For some … Continue reading
Posted in Books
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Tested Advertising Methods
I’m not sure where I got the recommendation for Tested Advertising Methods (5th Edition) by John Caples and edited by Fred E. Hahn. It might have been a comment on Hacker News or possibly one of the fine recommendations that … Continue reading
The Essence of Hayek (Part 1)
In April I wrote a long, winding review of Drift into Failure. I was very proud of it: in the space of several thousand words I visited complex systems, fuzzy logic and the usefulness of positivistic thinking. It met with … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Economics and public policy, Systems
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Effective Work Breakdown Structures / Project Estimating and Cost Management
As I said in my last review, I’m currently working up a tool to make it easier to create estimates. As part of my work I’ve been reading various bits of literature. Today Amazon delivered two books. At around 100 … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Estimation
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Practical Software Project Estimation (3rd Ed)
My current focus is to develop an estimation tool. Not just for software, but for a wide range of industries. Software estimation is, of course, closest to my heart, given that my line of work is software. This is where … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Software Engineering
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